I had made a pledge of sorts to not set foot in this thread again. But just started watching
The Wilds. As I said elsewhere, it’s a good enough show if you subtract the feminism. When it comes to the fact that the feminism is unnatural, “shoehorned in” doesn’t begin to cover it. But my favourite bit, which exemplifies the entire conundrum for me, is this.
The teenage protagonist (ish, one of),
WARNING: spoilers below
miraculously finds a working phone. Plot twists aside, she chooses to call her lame grown-arse man “boyfriend”/virginity taker/call it what you will and not the 911/999/whatever.
miraculously finds a working phone. Plot twists aside, she chooses to call her lame grown-arse man “boyfriend”/virginity taker/call it what you will and not the 911/999/whatever.
Now, yes, it is addressed directly in the story: she regrets it, she admits it was a stupid thing to do, that she’s let her emotions get the better of her, and blah, blah, blah. But the message that in the writers’ minds seems to somehow fit in with the general “““feminism””” is that a “teenage girl” would actually do this. So, time is spent on getting us to “care” about the protagonists, blah, blah, blah again, they’re shown to be reasonably resourceful (that’s the genetic “surviver” plot, after all, we never get any actual helpless people because they’d be boring to watch and die off ASAP), and yet it is assumed that the first thing a teenage girl does is call her **** buddy. Reasonably realistic, actually, I think, but then, if we take the whole “fiction isn’t reality” line, why take that path if you want to show them being resourceful and competent women? To show that said guy is
WARNING: spoilers below
a “dickhead” and doesn’t even call for help, all hail feminism, perhaps she should have saved herself for someone bet…. Oooh wait, then it wouldn’t be a feminist show, oh, dear.
a “dickhead” and doesn’t even call for help, all hail feminism, perhaps she should have saved herself for someone bet…. Oooh wait, then it wouldn’t be a feminist show, oh, dear.
That’s the sort of double standards conundrum that I find so pathetic and off-putting about almost every single film/show with a feminist slant ever made. I do think a really sheltered and empty-headed teenager could conceivably do something like that, but portraying it, using it as a story driver instead of all the other story drivers is pathetic if a “female empowerment” (or is it “female superpowers”?) message is then forced on the overarching narrative. Besides, the very least one could do is have her
WARNING: spoilers below
die off “for” (due to) that kind of attitude, but no, she lives to tell the tale
die off “for” (due to) that kind of attitude, but no, she lives to tell the tale
.
Would be so much fun to actually see a “girly girl” sit on a rock filing her nails and still make it on that kind of show.
*rant over*.